‘Halloween 3D’ coming in summer 2010

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‘Halloween II’ may not have won the box office this weekend, but Weinstein Co. is taking a lesson from the movie that did as it prepares a sequel for next summer.

The independent studio’s co-Chairman Bob Weinstein said today that the 3-D sequel, titled, appropriately enough, ‘Halloween 3D,’ is in development.

The investment it takes to shoot movies in digital 3-D has proved particularly lucrative for horror films. For ‘The Final Destination,’ this weekend’s No. 1 movie, theaters with at least one 3-D screen earned 3.25 times as much as those that showed the movie in 2-D only, according to distributor Warner Bros. That’s substantially higher than for other recent releases. The equivalent 3-D multiple for last month’s ‘G-Force,’ for instance, was only 1.7 on its first weekend. For July’s ‘Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs’ it was 1.4 andm for June’s ‘Up’ it was 2.2. January horror flick ‘My Bloody Valentine’ earned 6.4 times as much from 3-D theaters as it did from 2-D on its opening weekend.

Weinstein said Rob Zombie, who directed ‘Halloween II’ and 2007’s reboot of the 31-year-old horror series, won’t return for ‘Halloween 3-D.’ He said the studio is in negotiations with a new director, whom he declined to name, who has experience in horror and has a ‘different take’ on the franchise.

-- Ben Fritz